Citizenship irrelevant to purpose of census

Last month, the U.S. Department of Commerce set off a slow-rolling tidal wave for which it may be unprepared. On March 26, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that for the first time in half a century, forms for the 2020 census will include a question about U.S. citizenship status. Already, at least 17 states, groups of individuals and up to a dozen cities have filed lawsuits to remove the citizenship question. Social media users are calling for a boycott of the census or urging answering all other questions and ignoring the question about U.S. citizenship status. Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, added the question in response to a Justice Department request. It’s necessary to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, Justice asserted, in order to prevent discrimination of minority groups. Legal challenges to the citizenship question argue that there are already adequate citizenship numbers to enforce the Voting Rights Act. Moreover, the citizenship question fails to meet the Census Bureau’s own standards for testing new questions, violating the Administrative Procedure Act, a statute governing the process for federal agencies to propose and adopt new regulations. The decennial census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2 to determine representation in Congress. Besides dictating how many House seats each state gets, the data’s used to dish out federal funds to local communities. The census has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. U.S. marshals counted the population for the first census, which contained just six questions. It asked for the name of the white male householder and the names of all other people in the household, categorized as: free white males at least 16 years old; free white males under 16 years old; free white females; all other persons; and slaves (who were counted as three-fifths of a person). The 1950 census survey, which contained 20 questions, was the last time the Census Bureau asked all U.S. households about citizenship. Two-part Question No. 14 asked if anyone in the house was foreign born and whether or not the person was naturalized. The Constitution requires a head count of each state’s population – those people actually residing in the state — not the number of people eligible to vote, critics argue. Therefore, a person’s citizenship status is irrelevant to the purpose of determining population. The citizenship question could discourage noncitizens, afraid of deportation from completing the census, critics also point out. Lawmakers counter that federal law prohibits the Census Bureau from releasing personal, identifying information. But it did in the past. During World War II, the Bureau shared 1940 census data about Japanese Americans who were then rounded up and forced from their homes and into internment camps.Here’s the bottom line for this census estimated to cost $15.6 billion. A person residing in a state constitutes one constituent of that state’s population regardless of whether she’s there legally or illegally.

Nota bene: See all past census survey questions on the Census Bureau Website at https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/.